I'm for the Hippopotamus

This is fairly standard Hill/Spencer stuff, except for the fact that Joe Bugner (the former British, Commonwealth, European and Australian Heavyweight champion) plays the part of the villain. The film is worth watching simply for Joe's fantastic acting and South African accent. As expected in Hill/Spencer films, Joe gets beaten up in the end with the usual variety of kitchen utensils and everything ends up happily ever after.

Terence Hill and Bud Spencer don't get along as they partner in a tourist bust in Africa. But they really don't like Joe Bugner, who's shipping animals and ivory to Canada, and forcing the locals out of their homes. Hill and Spencer wander around, engage in rowdydows, and let the captured animals escape in this chaotic comedy.

Not everything works; there's a sequence in which Bugner is serving them expensive foods like lobster and caviar, who turns into disgusting rather than funny. However, the good humor, the siport for Native life, and the opposition to pillaging the local animals should win a lot of sympathy points, as these two just go about destroying anything that gets in their way.

Plenty of laughs and fight scenes in this one and this is the only one of their movies where Spencer comes across a guy who is nearly as tough as he is.

Hard to deal with seeing wild animals locked up in cages, but I suppose that it's good that Spencer and Hill were on a mission to set them all free. Some of the scenes really did look like animals were being set free for real.

BTW, hippopotami only feature in the first scene. A laughing mechanical one in particular.

GRAU GRAU GRAU!! Love this movie! Only in a Spencer/Hill movie can you see a man eat a lobster whole, comic fight scenes, & a bulldozer jailbreak. This has to be one of the best non-western films the pair has done. They are out to save wildlife from the greed of poachers, The former heavy-weight champ bad guy is terrific. Spencer does a bunch of his fist hammers on the top of the bad guys heads (NEVER gets old to see that!)Hill avoids punches, moves out of the way so they end up punching a fellow bad guy (Also.. NEVER gets old!). Lots of fun in this film, Great comdey that was often duplicated by other filmakers but never done as good as these guys can do it. Track down a copy of this and sit back & enjoy it.

The Hill & Spencer movies were never famous for their brilliant stories, but this one doesn't even make an effort. Plotless, slow-paced, boring and only occasionally amusing, it feels like a film that was made out of obligation, rather than like something that the stars and the filmmakers put their hearts in. At least with its animal-friendly messages you could say it's good for kids, but no - they'll be as bored with it as anyone else. (**)